Workflow generally is the flow of information and control in such organizations. Businesses continually strive to define, document, and streamline such processes in order to effectively compete. In a business setting, these processes include sales and order processing, purchasing tasks, inventory control and management, manufacturing and production control, shipping and receiving, accounts payable, and the like.
Computer systems and associated software now provide tools with which businesses and other organizations can improve their workflow. Software tools can be used to model business workflow processes or schedules and identify inefficiencies and possible improvements. In addition, where a process involves exchanging data between people, departments, plants, or even between separate companies, computer systems and networks can be used to implement these exchanges. Such systems and software tools are further able to implement large-scale computations and other data or information processing that are typically associated with business related information.
Accordingly, workflow management includes the effective management of information flow and control in an organization's business processes, wherein automation of such information processing has led to many efficiency improvements in the modern business world. Moreover, such automation of workflow management is now allowing businesses and other organizations to further improve performance by executing workflow transactions in computer systems, including global computer networks, such as the Internet.
A typical workflow-based application often requires a plurality of conditions to be satisfied. For example, one such condition is the ability to make decisions based on business rules. This can include simple rules, (e.g., like as a yes-or-no decision based on the result of a credit check), and more complex rules, (e.g., the potentially large set that must be evaluated to make an initial underwriting decision.) Another requirement is communication with other software and other systems outside the workflow. For example, an initial request can be received from one part of the application, while some aspects, (e.g., contacting a credit service) can require communication using other web services or technologies. A further condition to be satisfied is the proper interaction of the workflow with users. For example, the workflow should typically be able to display a user interface itself or interact with human beings through other software. Moreover, the ability to maintain state throughout the workflow's lifetime is another condition that needs to be satisfied. Accordingly, creating and executing a workflow in software poses unique challenges.
For example, some business processes can take hours, days, or weeks to complete, and maintaining information about the workflow's current state for such length of time is demanding. Moreover, such kind of long-running workflow will also typically communicate with other software in a non-blocking way, and an asynchronous communication can pose difficulties. At the same time, while modeling fixed interactions among software is relatively straightforward, consumers tend to continuously require additional flexibility, such as the ability to change a business process on-the-fly. Handling diverse applications can further add to the complexities involved in workflow creation and management.
Many applications for workflow tools are internal to a business or organization. With the advent of networked computers having modems or other type communications links, computer systems at remote locations can now communicate easily with one another. Such enhanced communication allows computer system workflow applications to be used between remote facilities within a company. An example would include forwarding a customer order from a corporate headquarters to a remote field sales office for verification by the appropriate sales person, and returning a verification to the headquarters. Workflow applications also can be of particular utility in processing business transactions between different companies. In a typical application, two companies having a buyer-seller relationship may desire to automate the generation and processing of purchase orders, product shipments, billing, and collections.
For example, an application targeting a specific problem, such as customer relationship management (CRM), or a specific vertical market, such as financial services, can be built around a workflow. Such kind of application commonly implements a number of different business processes. Building the logic that drives those processes on a common workflow foundation such as Windows Workflow Foundation can make the application faster to build, quicker to change, and easier to customize. Moreover automating such processes can result in significant efficiency improvements, which are not otherwise possible. However, such inter-company application of workflow technology requires co-operation of the companies and proper interfacing and proper persistence service implementation of the individual company's existing computer systems and applications.
Thus far, workflow application tools have been developed that provide some capability for automating business workflow by defining workflow schedules. For example, a buyer may wish to transmit a purchase order number along with a list of products being purchased to a seller, and the seller may wish to respond with a confirmation of the order and an expected shipment date. Such type of transaction can involve a general consumer purchasing products from a retailer, or alternatively two large corporate entities that transact business regularly. The data associated with the order and the confirmation may be relatively small and the transmission time for the data may be on the order of fractions of a second. A workflow schedule application running in a computer system may allocate system resources to the transaction during its pendency, which is generally very short.
However, modeling a user interaction within a workflow poses difficulties. In particular, when people are involved, a workflow can take a long time to complete, and building scalable systems requires a deactivation of the workflow for interaction with a user. Moreover, driving a user interface (UI) based on workflow state, regardless of the kind of application can further increase the complexities involved.
Therefore, there is a need to overcome the aforementioned exemplary deficiencies associated with conventional systems and devices.